Sharad Pawar regrets ink remarks

New Delhi: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday regretted confusion and misunderstanding caused by his ink remark. He also requested the Election Commission to treat this issue as closed.

The development came after the Election Commission asked him to explain his stand by Thursday evening failing which a decision will be taken without asking him further.

The Election Commission had issued notice to Pawar for asking his party workers to vote twice in the multi-phase polling in Maharashtra after rubbing off the indelible ink.

"The Commission is, prima facie, of the opinion that by making the aforesaid statement you have violated the provision of Model Code," the Election Commission wrote to the NCP boss.

The provision states that ‘all parties and candidates shall avoid scrupulously all activities, which are corrupt practices and offences under the election law, such as bribing of voters, intimidation of voters, impersonation of voters’.

Acting on a complaint filed by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, the poll body sent Pawar a copy of the VCD carrying the speech he made in Navi Mumbai on Tuesday.

Pawar had asked his party workers to take advantage of the multi-phase polling in the state by voting twice, first at their hometowns and then at places of work.